From: ?????????????????
Subject: New subscriber

Hello. My name is James Akin. I am a native of Fayetteville, Arkansas, but I
currently live in San Diego, California. 

I am 29 and have been a pipe smoker since I was 13, with a three-year hiatus
at one point. My academic training is in philosophy, and I currently work as
an apologist at a ministry known as "Catholic Answers" here in San Diego (I
would explain that an apologist is a person who defends a position, and hence
a Catholic apologist is a person who defends the Catholic faith, but pipe
smokers are far too erudite for me to explain this without insulting them). 

I would be very interested in meeting other Pipes Digest subscribers here in
Souther California. My phone number is (619) 283-9757.  

To give a little more background on me, here is the introduction to an
article I am writing on the anti-smoking crusade and the inversion of
American moral priorities (when the article is completed, I will upload it to
Pipes Digest, though I plan to publish it elsewhere):

"It was almost guaranteed that I would be a pipe smoker. The chief reason is
that my father was a pipe-smoking university professor, and like any son I
wished to emulate my father. But there were other reasons. 

"I was intensely interested in science as a child, and the image of a
pipe-smoking scientist in a lab coat was stamped upon my brain at an early
age. I myself grew up to be a philosophy teacher at the local university, so
the archetype of the pipe-smoking philosopher also played a role. From the
other end of the social spectrum, I happened to grow up in the Ozark
mountains of Arkansas--hillbilly country. In later years I even discovered
that some of my ancestors were been born in Ireland (the rest being from two
other pipe-smoking countries, Scotland and England). 

"Thus as a scientific-philosopher-academic-hillbilly- Irishman, it was
virtually predestined that I would take up a pipe. And I did. 

"I enjoy smoking a pipe. It is very relaxing. I smoke a mild, sweet-smelling
tobacco, and I enjoy its taste and aroma. I am also sensitive to the romance
of pipe-smoking. The image is very appealing to me of being a good,
pipe-smoking Catholic daddy, with a passle of children at my feet, reading
Bible stories by the fireside during 
Advent."

Unfortunately, I do not currently have such a passle of children, as I was
widowed at the age of 27 (two days after my 27th birthday), and am currently
seeking a devout Catholic wife who wants lots of babies. (Coincidentally, I
became Catholic just four days before being widowed; previously, I had been a
Evangelical and had hoped to teach in an Evangelical seminary.)

The tobacconist I use here in San Diego is Liberty Tobacco (7341 Clairmont
Mesa Blvd. in Independence Square Plaza, [619] 292-1772). 

The store is run by a man name Charlie Hennigan, who has provided chairs for
guys to sit around and talk. He also has a TV set up and a small 'fridge for
beer (& other beverages). Often during the afternoons, Charlie has a "movie
of the day" which he plays on VCR for men who don't have to work during the
afternoon. Several times a year (at least once a quarter, it seems), he has
cook-outs and parties at the store, as well as yearly cigar and pipe smoking
contests, and frequent "golf outings" for the customers.

The atmosphere at Litberty Tobacco is quite pub-like (except for the
prominence of smoke over drink), and I enjoy it a great deal.

Hope to write to you soon, and glad to be a subscriber. 

[ Thanks! And what a great name for the shop! -S. ]


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